Apple boss Cook may have stumped up $60m IPAD pay-out

Apple’s IPAD trademark opponent Proview has suggested that CEO Tim Cook may have personally stepped in to fund the $60 million settlement fee paid to the failed monitor company last month.

In an interview with Chinese tech title IT-Times, independently translated by The Reg, Proview founder Yang Rongshan said the fee was noted by many to be rather close to the $75m dividend pay-out Cook surprisingly declined in May this year.

The decision was revealed in an SEC filing at the time and although some media reports suggested that Cook turned down the potential windfall on his 1-million-plus shares because he wanted to “set an example”, there was no official reason given.

Proview legal bod Ray Mai offered a little more explanation as to why Cook may have felt responsible for the payment.

He told IT-Times that because the whole legal stand-off was caused by Apple employees making “avoidable mistakes”, it would have been wrong to punish shareholders by taking the compensation payment out of the Cupertino coffers.

“With Steve Jobs gone, Tim Cook should take responsibility,” he said.

The whole sorry mess revolved around the fact that Apple thought it had bought the rights to the disputed trademark from Proview Taiwan in 2009 for £35,000, but the monitor firm claimed only its Shenzhen affiliate had the legal right to sell the name for use in China.

There were also allegations that Apple deliberately tried to hide its reason for buying the name by employing an intermediary - IP Application Development (IPAD) - which was accused of acting deceitfully in its negotiations with Proview.